Hello and welcome to the Lost Medals Australia blog. My name is Glyn Llanwarne and I am the founder of Lost Medals Australia. This blog complements my main website www.lostmedalsaustralia.com.
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25 September 2017

Percival Pilkington

This search started on Saturday afternoon when M2 shared a Facebook post with me about a medal that had been found. This Victory Medal was awarded to 1610 Percival Frederick Pilkington who died of wounds on 14 April 1918.
Percival was from Charters Towers which is about 100km inland from Townsville. The medal had been found a few years ago on a Townsville beach by Michell E and it was her daughter, Jodie and her husband Mick, who initiated the call for assistance via Facebook. I couldn't establish any link from the Pilkington's of the early 20th century in Charters Towers to current day Townsville. One of Percival's siblings lived in Railway Estate until the 1950s but it appeared that most of the family was living in Brisbane by WWII.
There are a number of family trees for the Pilkington's on Ancestry but most of these had been shared from the same original source and there was a number of gaps which I couldn't reconcile with the Queensland BDM information. The search also got confusing with most of Percival's siblings being female and most of them having daughter's. It was through the tree of Jeff D that I got the lead on the person who is the closest relative to Percival. Jeff kindly provided my with the contact details of Percival's nephew Ron. All this information has been passed to Jodie and Mick and I'm sure they be in contact with Ron soon.
During my search I found a picture of Percival and his cousin Oliver. This picture, which I've added below, was turned in to a postcard that was sent to his cousin Alice. Oliver also died of wounds. Ron tells me that the family story is that: 'Percival went to visit Oliver in hospital only to find Oliver had died and was being buried that day. Percival was able to attend his funeral.
Many thanks to Jeff for his assistance and to Jodie and Mick for wanting to see this medal returned to the Pilkington family.
The returned medal tally is now 2148.